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In the rapidly changing world of fast food, 75-year-old, Columbus, Ohio-based White Castle has outlasted countless competitors by sticking to the steadfast philosophies established by co-founder Edgar Waldo "E. W." Ingram Sr. back in 1921.
Little did Ingram and partner Walter Anderson know when they opened their first White Castle in Wichita, Kan., that they were pioneers of what would become the sprawling fast-food industry.
Ingram came from humble beginnings, growing up in a two-room slab house roofed with tin cans in Leadville, Colo. His first job was as a livestock reporter on the Omaha Bee in 1900. After changing jobs several times, though, he opened an insurance firm with a partner in 1908. Business as a partner in the Stone & Ingram insurance and real-estate company was humming along when he met Anderson, who at the time operated three hamburger stands in Wichita.
Together, Ingram and Anderson opened their first White Castle with a $700 loan, which they repaid in about three months. Ingram often talked about the virtues of having no debts. Initially, he believed White Castle would be only a sideline to his insurance agency. But he found he liked the hamburger business so much that he decided to devote full time to it. So he sold his interest in Stone and Ingram three months later.
Before White Castle made its five-cent all-beef steamed hamburgers consistently respectable, hamburger sandwiches were mainly served at carnivals, fairs and amusement parks rather than in restaurants. The quality and taste were often questionable, since unskilled workers frequently overcooked them on griddles or in skillets, robbing them of flavor.
"A lot of people credit Walt Anderson with inventing the hamburger," said E. W. Ingram III, chairman of the board, president, chief executive and grandson of E. W. Ingram Sr. However, Anderson sold his interest in the company to Ingram in 1933, so White Castle has...